Wednesday, November 30, 2022 PM

Sunnyside Baptist Church

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I'm on the right way. I understand there are a few more openings in choir, if anybody else wants to go.

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Might make a smaller crowd in here. No, we've got to do a preacher.

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Ah, okay. We'll see about that. So it's been a few weeks since I was up here.

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If you remember last time, I kind of had an introduction on what

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I was going to talk about when I was called back here, however long that would be.

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And we started talking about the attributes of God. Does everybody kind of remember that a little bit?

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We went into really, it was just an introduction on why I studied the attributes of God, the importance of it, the benefits that we receive, how it honors the

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Lord. And today we actually get to jump off and start in the first attribute.

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So before we get started, let me open us in prayer and just ask the Lord's blessing on our time this evening.

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Heavenly Father, we come before you and we are so grateful and humbled and in awe of who you are.

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Father, as we endeavor to undertake this study, I just pray that you just might give us a spirit of teachableness, a spirit of humility, your unapproachable throne in glory.

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Father, as we begin to unpack who you are, help us to recognize that we can never fully understand you.

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And yet, this is the duty of the Christian. So we ask for your blessing to be on our time.

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Just give me the ability to exposit your word that it might not be my words, but your words that are heard, your words that pierce our hearts, your words that give us encouragement and hope.

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Father, we love you. We ask all these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Okay. I've got a couple books here that I'll read out of tonight, but I do have notes as well.

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So because this is more topical, we will be kind of jumping around.

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So have your Bibles handy. We're going to look at several different scriptures as we go through tonight's study.

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So I alluded to this in the last teaching that I did when

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I was kind of listing off some attributes that are both incommunicable, meaning that we really don't share them with God, and communicable.

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And I kind of said at the time, these aren't necessarily proceeding in a particular order, but there was one that I listed first, and I said,

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I really think probably this needs to be the first one that we cover. So tonight, what we're talking about is the

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Aseity of God. And I'll go ahead and put that on the board so that you can see how to spell it.

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I need a thicker marker here. That's black. I don't know how to get darker than black.

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Let's do a thicker, like, chisel tip. There we go. How's that?

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Much better? The Aseity Man, this is wobbly.

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You need to be careful. Okay, the Aseity of God. Now, that's kind of an old -timey word.

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It comes from the Latin ase, and that means from himself.

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We can also, in our more contemporary speech or language, we can substitute aseity with words like independence, self -existence, solitariness, okay?

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And this would be really the first and foremost of God's incommunicable attributes.

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So we're going to get into why that is. First, we'll start out with he always was, is, and will be.

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He always was, is, and will be.

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So, where do we start when we start anything? Well, I probably should start with the dictionary.

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But usually when we start anything, we start at the beginning. In this case, we're kind of starting before the beginning.

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So, everybody open your Bibles to Genesis 1 -1. Most of us know this by heart, but we can look in God's Word.

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Genesis 1 -1, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

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That is assuming it is implied there, in the beginning,

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God existed already. He was before the beginning. Turn to Revelation.

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We start at the beginning and then we go to the end. Revelation chapter 4, verse 11 says, you are worthy,

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O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things and by your will they exist and were created.

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We can see this even when we go into the Gospels. Turn to John.

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Another verse that many of us are, I'm sure, familiar with. Chapter 1, verse 3.

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All things were made through him and without him nothing was made that was made.

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Flip over to Romans. I told you we'd be jumping around a little bit.

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Romans chapter 11, verse 36.

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For of him and through him and to him are all things, to whom be glory forever.

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Amen. Go back to Psalms lastly. We want to look in Psalm chapter 90, starting in verse 2.

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This is the Psalm of Moses. Before the mountains were brought forth, wherever you had formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, you are

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God. I'm using so much scripture here really because when we talk about the independence, the self -existence, the solitariness of God, the aseity of God, it's not something that we can fully comprehend with our human understanding.

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So we have to let scripture inform us of the fact that God is the only being who has ever only always existed in eternity past, in the present, and into eternity future.

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That's not something anything that he created can fit into that category.

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God is the only being in existence who exists by virtue of his very nature.

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He was never created and never came into being. Flip over to Exodus.

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Exodus chapter 3. There's Moses standing in front of the burning bush.

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God is speaking to him out of this bush and Moses, like he has a tendency to do, has some excuses and he's kind of trying to put off doing what

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God wants him to do. Verse 13, Then Moses said to God, Indeed, when

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I come to the children of Israel and say to them, as God asked him to do, The God of your fathers has sent me to you, and they say to me,

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What is his name? What shall I say to them? And God said to Moses, I am who

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I am. And he said, Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, The I am has sent me to you.

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I had kind of a thought as I was reading this. In a way, this is like a parent telling the child when a child asks why

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I have to do something, what is often the refrain of maybe an exasperated parent, because I said so.

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This is kind of like the because I said so. It is a statement of I'm making this statement because I'm making this statement.

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Because I'm the one making this statement. Again, A .W. Pink, the preacher from the early 20th century, has written a great little book,

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The Attributes of God. You can pick it up, probably pretty cheap. I think it's from Chapel Library.

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His first chapter is on the solitariness of God. His writing is so well done.

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He uses language so well. I'll read a little excerpt. Just meditate on it and let your imagination and mind form these images in your mind.

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In the beginning, God, Genesis 1 .1, there was a time, if time it could be called, when

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God in the unity of his nature, though subsisting equally in three divine persons, dwelt all alone.

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In the beginning, God. Just think as I read this.

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There was no heaven where his glory is now particularly manifested. There was no earth to engage his attention.

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There was no angels to hymn his praises. No universe to be upheld by the word of his power.

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There was nothing, no one but God. And that, not for a day, a year, or an age, but from everlasting.

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During eternity past, God was alone, self -contained, self -sufficient, self -satisfied, in need of nothing.

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Had a universe, had angels, had human beings been necessary to him in any way, they also had been called into existence from all eternity.

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The creating of them, when he did, added nothing to God essentially.

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He changes not, Malachi 3 .6. Therefore his essential glory can be neither augmented nor diminished.

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Isn't that amazing? When you stop and meditate on that, all the things that we experience in our lives today, family, friends, our homes, food, sunlight, even the supernatural that we know are there, angels, demons, the cosmos, anything that is out there that the

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Hubble telescope has seen or is yet to see or the new James Webb telescope, there was a time when none of that existed except for God.

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Number two, he needs nothing from us or the rest of creation.

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It seems like a lot of this goes without saying, but it needs to be thought about, it needs to be meditated on.

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Why should God create anything? Any ideas?

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Why should God decide to create anything? For his glory.

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That's right, by the way. Let's go there.

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Turn to Ephesians. Ephesians chapter 1.

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Look in verse 11. Ephesians 1 verse 11.

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In him also we have obtained an inheritance being predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of his glory.

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Look back a little bit in verse 5, same chapter, and this is reiterated there.

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Having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to himself according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace by which he made us accepted in the beloved.

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It kind of continues on under the heading of his sovereign will. God was under no constraint, no obligation, no necessity to create.

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That he chose to do so was purely a sovereign act on his part, caused by nothing outside himself, determined by nothing but his own mere good pleasure.

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For he worketh all things after the counsel of his own will. That he did create was simply for his manifestative glory.

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So there you go. Do some of our readers imagine that we've gone beyond what scripture warrants?

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Let's appeal to the law and to the testimony. Nehemiah chapter 9 verse 5.

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Stand up and bless the Lord your God forever and ever and blessed be thy glorious name which is exalted above all blessing and praise.

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God is no gainer even from our worship. He was in no need of that external glory of his grace which arises from his redeemed and he is glorious enough in himself without that.

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What was it that moved him to predestinate his elect to the praise of the glory of his grace?

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It was according to his good pleasure. So we can look even more in scripture to support this.

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Paul when he is talking to the men in Athens in Acts chapter 17.

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You can turn there if you want. Starting in verse 22,

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Acts 17 22. Paul's there at the Areopagus and all these philosophers are surrounded by these gods that they've set up.

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It says in verse 22, Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, men of Athens I perceive that in all things you are very religious for as I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship

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I even found an altar with this inscription to the unknown

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God. Therefore the one whom you worship without knowing him

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I proclaim to you. God who made the world and everything in it since he is

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Lord of heaven and earth does not dwell in temples made with hands nor is he worshipped with men's hands as though he needed anything since he gives to all life and breath and all things.

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Turn back into the Old Testament to Job. Job is full of the richness of the otherness of God.

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Job chapter 41 verse 11 God is answering

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Job who has preceded me that I should pay him everything under heaven is mine.

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Turn over to Psalm 50. Psalm chapter 50 starting in verse 10.

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God is speaking of himself here. He's speaking of his divine character and nature for every beast of the forest is mine and the cattle on a thousand hills.

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I know all the birds of the mountains and the wild beasts of the field are mine. If I were hungry

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I would not tell you for the world is mine and all its fullness.

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And then I'm going to make you do some more paperwork. Flip back to Job. You guys are doing sword drills tonight.

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Job chapter 35 verse 7 if you are righteous what do you give him or what does he receive from your hand?

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Verse 8 your wickedness affects a man such as you and your righteousness a son of man.

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So God doesn't need anything from us. This will just kind of be a little aside within this section.

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A lot of people over time have thought well God had to be lonely or bored in this eternity past before creation.

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He had to be made happy in some way. God has always been unified in his nature though subsisting equally in three persons.

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That's part of the excerpt that I just read you from Pink. Christ himself answers this.

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Turn to John chapter 17 verse 5.

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Jesus is praying for himself here. He says and now oh father glorify me together with yourself with the glory which

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I had with you before the world was. Skip down just a little bit to verse 24 in the same chapter.

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Jesus is now praying for believers. He says father I desire that they also whom you gave me may be with me where I am that they may behold my glory which you have given me for you loved me before the foundation of the world.

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So here we see the fellowship the love that was shared at least among Christ and his father.

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Grudem has a great excerpt from systematic theology saying that these passages indicate explicitly what we can learn elsewhere from the doctrine of the

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Trinity. Namely that among the persons of the Trinity there has been perfect love and fellowship and communication for all eternity.

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The fact that God is three persons yet one God means that there was no loneliness or lack of personal fellowship on God's part before creation.

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In fact the love and interpersonal fellowship and the sharing of glory among those persons of the

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Godhead have always been and will always be far more perfect than any communion we as finite limited human beings will ever have with God.

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And as the second verse quoted above speaks of the glory the father gave to the son so we should also realize that there is a giving of glory by the members of the

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Trinity to one another that far surpasses any bestowal of glory that could ever be given to God by all of his creation.

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So again that's just confirming God didn't need to make anything.

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He was perfectly happy, perfectly content, perfectly self -sufficient in himself and among the persons of the

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Godhead. Without creation God would still be infinitely loving, infinitely just, infinitely eternal, infinitely omniscient, infinitely

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Trinitarian, and on and on and on. Number three.

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He is totally unique in himself.

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And you might think I'm beating a dead horse here, but it helps to think on things deeply.

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So this is another passage that Grudem kind of unpacks God's uniqueness. And it's interesting that this came up I was in chapel today at Christian Heritage Academy and the speaker in this is lower elementary chapel so it's pre -k through second grade and the chapel speaker was talking about the uniqueness of every student that was in there and he defined unique as one of a kind and I don't think that that applies to the word unique here because God is not one of a kind.

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God is God. This is the way that we can understand

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God's uniqueness. It's not just that God does not need the creation for anything.

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God could not need the creation for anything. There's a difference there.

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The difference between the creature and the creator is an immensely vast difference for God exists in a fundamental fundamentally different order of being.

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It's not just that we exist and God has always existed. That's a way to kind of think about it simply.

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It is also that God necessarily exists in an infinitely better stronger more excellent way.

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The difference between God's being and ours is more than the difference between the sun and a candle.

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More than the difference between the ocean and a raindrop. More than the difference between the

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Arctic ice cap and a snowflake. More than the difference between the universe and the room that we're all sitting in right now.

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God's being is qualitatively different. No limitation or imperfection in creation should ever be projected onto our thought of God.

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He is creator and all else is creaturely. Everything else that he creates can pass away in an instant.

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He necessarily must exist forever. That brings us to point number four.

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If God is so other, if he's so not us, how can we know him?

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How can I even be speaking the words that I'm speaking to you?

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How can you even be listening and even have the remotest comprehension of what

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I'm talking about if God is so outside of who we are?

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Ultimately, it's because he's the one who revealed himself to us. We didn't find out about God.

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Now, does creation speak about the glory of God?

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Obviously. Scripture talks about that. But it's only by his revelation that we know anything about him.

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Pink talks about in near the end of this chapter. He says, an analogy has been drawn between a savage finding a watch upon the sand and from a close examination of it he infers a watchmaker.

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So far, so good. But attempt to go further. Suppose that savage sits down on the sand and endeavors to form himself a conception of this watchmaker.

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His personal affections and manners, his disposition, acquirements and moral character.

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All that goes into making up someone's personality. Could he ever think or reason out the real man?

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The man who made the watch so that he could say, I'm acquainted with him. It seems trifling to ask such questions.

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But is the eternal and infinite God so much more within the grasp of human reason? No, indeed.

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The God of Scripture can only be known by those to whom he makes himself known.

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Nor is God known by the intellect. Even if we know things about God, that's not enough.

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God is spirit, John 4, 24. And therefore can only be known spiritually.

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But fallen man is not spiritual. He's carnal. He is dead to all that is spiritual.

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Unless he is born again, supernaturally brought from death into life, miraculously translated out of darkness into light, he cannot even see the things of God.

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John 3, 3. Much less apprehend them. 1 Corinthians 2, 14. The Holy Spirit has to shine in our hearts, not our intellects.

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In order to give us the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. I remember that from your devotion,

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Dwight, a few weeks ago. 2 Corinthians 4, 6. And that actually came up for me.

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This semester at school, we go through a book every year, or a couple of books every year as a faculty and staff.

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And this year we're revisiting a book that we've done in the past. It's John Piper's God is the

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Gospel. Fortunately, like 10 years ago, I think I taught a summer Sunday school session about this.

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But I've had to sub, I've had to fill in for our headmaster during a couple of our devotion studies in the morning.

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And of course, he gave me the central chapter in the book. And it's covering 2

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Corinthians 4, verses 4 -6. And Piper says this so well, it matches what

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Pink says at the end of that section in terms of our being in a state of spiritual death.

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And because God is spirit, he's the one who has to act. Piper says, concerning the light that is being talked about in 2

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Corinthians 4, chapter 4, verses 4 -6.

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He said, what must be seen is not mere news and not mere knowledge. What must be seen is light.

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And the light gets its unique quality from the fact that the light of the gospel of the glory and the light of the knowledge of the glory are one and the same.

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The light of the glory of Christ and the light of the glory of God are one light.

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They will, in the end, prove to be one glory. But the point here is this, the glory of God in Christ revealed through the gospel is a real objective light that must be spiritually seen in order for there to be salvation.

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If it is not seen, spiritually tasted as glorious and precious and beautiful,

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Satan still has his way and there's no salvation. It is entirely an act of God that we know about any of this.

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So we kind of come to the end of this and we think, well, then I guess our favorite book should be

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Ecclesiastes because everything is meaningless now. We can't fully understand.

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God is so far above us and where we are. And that's when we encounter the mystery that we can glorify him and bring him joy.

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That's a terrible five. The mystery that we can glorify him and bring him joy.

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Flip over to Isaiah. Isaiah chapter 43 verse 7.

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Everyone who is called by my name, whom I have created for my glory, I have formed him.

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Yes, I have made him. Again in Isaiah chapter 62 verse 3.

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You shall also be a crown of glory in the hand of the Lord and a royal diadem in the hand of your

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God. You shall no longer be termed forsaken nor shall your land any more be termed desolate.

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But you shall be called Hephzibah and your land Beluah. For the

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Lord delights in you and your land shall be married. For as a young man marries a virgin, so shall your sons marry you.

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And as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you.

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And then finally in Zephaniah. That's one of the ones we don't go to very often.

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It's after Habakkuk. Zephaniah chapter 3 verses 17 and 18.

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The Lord your God in your midst, the mighty one will save. He will rejoice over you with gladness.

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He will quiet you with his love. He will rejoice over you with singing.

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I will gather those who sorrow over the appointed assembly who are among you to whom its reproach is a burden.

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Though God has no need of us, he chooses to delight in us and allow us to bring joy to his heart.

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I want to conclude by reading out of Isaiah. Isaiah chapter 40.

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And I can't help but read the whole chapter because if you read part of it,

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I mean any part of it is true, but if you read part of it you might look at it in light of everything that we've talked about up here which is good and glorious and great and yet it may leave us feeling meaningless.

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But that's not when you read Isaiah chapter 40 what you come away with.

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Notice it opens with the word comfort. Comfort, yes, comfort my people says your

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God. Speak comfort to Jerusalem and cry out to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned for she has received from the

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Lord's hand double for all her sins. The voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the

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Lord. Make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted and every mountain and hill brought low.

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The crooked places shall be made straight and the rough places smooth. The glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together for the mouth of the

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Lord has spoken. The voice said, cry out. And he said, what shall

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I cry? All flesh is grass and all its loveliness is like the flower of the field.

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The grass withers, the flower fades because the breath of the Lord blows upon it.

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Surely the people are crass. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our

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God stands forever. O Zion, you who bring good tidings get up to the high mountain.

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O Jerusalem, you who bring good tidings, lift up your voice with strength. Lift it up and be not afraid.

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Say to the cities of Judah, behold your God. Behold the Lord God shall come with a strong hand and his arm shall rule for him.

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Behold his reward is with him and his work before him. He will feed his flock like a shepherd.

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He will gather the lambs with his arm and carry them in his bosom and gently lead those who are with young.

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Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand? Measured heaven with a span and calculated the dust of the earth in a measure?

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Weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance? Who has directed the spirit of the

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Lord or as his counselor has taught him? With whom did he take counsel and who instructed him and taught him in the path of justice?

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Who taught him knowledge and showed him the way of understanding? Behold, the nations are as a drop in the bucket and are counted as the small dust on the scales.

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Look, he lifts up the isles as a very little thing and Lebanon is not sufficient to burn nor its beasts sufficient for a burnt offering.

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All nations before him are as nothing and they are counted by him less than nothing and worthless.

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To whom then will you liken God or what likeness will you compare to him? The workman molds an image, the goldsmith overspreads it with gold and the silversmith casts silver chains.

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Whoever is too impoverished for such a contribution chooses a tree that will not rot. He seeks for himself a skillful workman to prepare a carved image that will not totter.

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Have you not known? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning?

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Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? It is he who sits above the circle of the earth and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers who stretches out the heavens like a curtain and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in.

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He brings the princes to nothing. He makes the judges of the earth useless. Scarcely shall they be planted, scarcely shall they be sown, scarcely shall their stock take root in the earth when he will also blow on them and they will wither and the whirlwind will take them away like stubble.

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To whom then will you liken me or to whom shall I be equal? Says the

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Holy One. Here's where we can find hope. Lift up your eyes on high and see who has created these things.

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Who brings out their host by number. He calls them all by name. By the greatness of his might and the strength of his power, not one is missing.

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Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel? My way is hidden from the Lord and my just claim is passed over by my

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God. Have you not known? Have you not heard? The everlasting

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God, the Lord, the creator of the ends of the earth, neither faints nor is weary. His understanding is unsearchable.

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He gives power to the weak and to those who have no might he increases strength. Even the youth shall faint and be weary and the young men shall utterly fall.

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But those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles.

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They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint. I end with that because that is a chapter we need to go back to all the time.

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To see how small we are. We think we are so great.

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Don't we? We think we're so great and yet when we come honestly before the face of God, you have to do, the only thing that you can do is fall to your face and say that I am nothing.

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Yet at that point in time God is saying lift up your eyes.

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I'm here. I'm for you. All I ask is that you obey me and that you worship me because I'm worthy.

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I've said I'm worthy. As we begin this study in depth on the attributes of God we start with God's independence, his self -existence, his society.

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Any further comments or questions? We're going to have a time of prayer.